Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah (literally translated as 'the head of the year') is one of the most important dates on the Jewish calendar. It is a time for seeking forgiveness and in effect, beginning the year with a clean slate. Celebrated over two days, Rosh Hashanah is marked through traditions such as blowing…

The Māori Church at Taumutu, with members of the Māori and European congregation. The Rev. Philip J. Cocks from Southbridge, the Rev. H. E. Ensor from Leeston, and the Rev. C. Griffin, the Wesleyan minister at Leeston, all hold periodical services in this church, which is largely attended by the fishermen from Taumutu Point. The…

A decision had been made. It was time for Hyam Edward Nathan to give up his seat. The members of Christchurch’s Jewish community, who arrived at the New Year service on 13 September 1882, knew to expect trouble when they saw that Nathan was already sitting in his self-appointed seat, B29. The issue of Nathan…

Dystopia: relating to or denoting an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. I love a great dystopian novel, it's a genre that can veer into classic science fiction, but the ones I love the most are the ones you can imagine happening in…

Over the years I've had ambivalent feelings toward feminism. However, this has changed markedly as I've encountered the work of people like Egyptian-American journalist and feminist commentator Mona Eltahawy, whose book Headscarves and Hymens states the case for "why the Middle East needs a sexual revolution"...and arguably a reformation. This book came up on my…

Wherever you go, you take your troubles with you. This was never more apparent than on Boxing Day, 1879, when sectarian violence broke out on the streets of Christchurch and Timaru, between Irish Catholics and protestant Orangemen. Although the more severe violence took place in Christchurch, it was actually the Timaru fracas that made it…

"Monica, Monica, have a happy Hanukkah!" I'm a tad ashamed to say that, yes, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word Hanukkah is Phoebe's holiday song in Friends. I suspect that I may not be alone in my limited awareness... Yet Hanukkah is one of the most popular Jewish religious…